The Cake That Waits for The Cocktail Diaries

The Cake That Waits

Some recipes don’t rush.

They’re made to sit. To deepen. To be returned to days — sometimes weeks — later, when the mood shifts or the weather changes or you simply remember they’re there.

This is one of those cakes.

After the weekend of reminiscence, sugar, laughter, and unravelling, I found myself reaching not for another pudding, but for the classic fruit cake that always lived somewhere in the background of our family kitchens. Less ceremonial than the boiled pudding. More forgiving. Still generous.

The kind of cake that understands patience.

Fruit, Alcohol, and Quiet Authority

We’ve always favoured sultanas and raisins over currants — they’re larger, juicier, and far better at holding alcohol. Food logic passed down without explanation, because it never needed one.

Dates were standard. Prunes optional — though my sister prefers them. Dried plums, really. Depth over sweetness. The fruit selection alone tells you everything about the cook.

Salted butter, always. Brown sugar packed firmly — and if you add a little extra, no one’s complaining. Nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger. Marmalade stirred through like a secret rather than a feature.

It’s not flashy.
It’s confident.

This cake doesn’t announce itself. It waits to be noticed.

Classic Fruit Cake

Ingredients

• 1½ lb mixed dried fruit
  (we use sultanas & raisins — juicier, better alcohol carriers)

• 8 oz dates, chopped

• 4 oz prunes (optional — or increase dates by 4 oz)

• 4 oz butter (salted preferred)

• ¾ cup brown sugar, firmly packed (I usually add a little more)

• 1 tsp nutmeg

• 1 tsp cinnamon

• 1 tsp ginger

• ½ cup sweet cherry

• ½ cup green ginger wine

• 2 tbsp marmalade (caramelised, if you have it)

Method

Place all ingredients except eggs and flour into a large pot.
Bring to the boil, covered, for 2 minutes.

Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Once cooled, add:

• 2 beaten eggs

• 1 cup self-raising flour

• 1 cup plain flour

• ¼ tsp salt (even with salted butter)

Mix thoroughly and spoon into a parchment-lined cake tin.

Bake at 180°C / 375°F for 2 hours.

After the first hour, cover loosely with aluminium foil to protect the fruit and prevent burning.

Once cooked, remove from oven and allow to cool completely with foil still on. Remove from tin when cold.

Stores for weeks in an airtight container.

If it dries out — and it might — simply sprinkle with alcohol or sugar syrup.
It will forgive you.

A Note to the Wise

Growing up with food like this means we do not measure wisely.

We add.
We adapt.
“It needs a pinch of…”
“It could do with a shot of…”

That works for us.

These recipes were passed down on scraps of paper, from weathered hands that knew how to adjust each batch for:

• the season

• the weather

• the mood

• the audience

So tread carefully when following our old recipes.

They were never meant to be exact.
They were meant to be felt.

The Kind of Cake That Stays

Some recipes mark events.
Others mark continuity.

This one doesn’t belong to Christmas alone, or Boxing Day, or any fixed date. It belongs to the spaces after — when the house is quieter, the stories have settled, and what remains is nourishment that doesn’t demand attention.

The cake that waits.

And rewards you when you remember it’s there.

What Stands Beside It

There’s something quietly reassuring about reaching for an Old Fashioned when a recipe carries this much time in it.

It’s one of those drinks that hasn’t needed reinvention — spirit, sugar, bitters, done — and it’s been keeping people company since long before recipes were written down properly. The sort of thing you imagine being made at the end of a long day, not to impress, but to settle.

For this cake, I lean toward a brandy base rather than whisky. The fruit already brings warmth and sweetness; the brandy softens the edges and lets the spice breathe. It doesn’t compete. It listens.

It’s the kind of pairing that doesn’t announce itself. You don’t sip it to cleanse the palate. You sip it because it belongs there — because both cake and glass understand patience, proportion, and restraint.

Some things don’t want novelty beside them.
They want something that knows how to stand quietly and stay.

You’ll find variations on this theme in The Cocktail Diaries — but this one earned its place at the table without instruction.

There’s something about Sam’s take on the Old Fashioned that feels right to me. Measured. Practical. I can easily imagine early settlers sipping something like this — just a dash of sweetness added, not for indulgence, but for sustenance — at the end of a long, cold day.

I can even picture my great-grandmother making one up as she worked, glass set aside within reach while the fruit softened and the kitchen filled with steam and spice.

That said, on this side of the ocean — in the early Australian colony — I suspect it would have been rum-based. Rum was the spirit of trade here. The spirit of power, control, and turmoil. The Rum Rebellion wasn’t just politics; it was culture poured into a glass.

If such a drink were being taken locally, I imagine it happening at the Macquarie Arms, established in 1815 — rather than the Fitz, which didn’t open until 1846, well after William Cox’s passing in 1837. A quieter setting, perhaps, but one steeped in the practical realities of colonial life.

Different spirit.
Same need.

Something steady to stand beside what was being made.